A history of Arabic literature

1903·21 MB·English

by  Huart, Clément, 1854-1926

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A HISTORY OF
ARABIC LITERATURE
BY
CLEMENT HUART
SECRETARY-INTERPRETER FOR ORIENTAL LANGUAGES TO
THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT, AND PROFESSOR ATTHE
ECOLE DES LANGUES ORIENTALES IN PARIS
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NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1903
Copyright, 1903
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Allrights reserved
Published September, 1003
S5
EDITORIAL PREFACE
This volume has been written at my invitation for this
series of Short Histories of the Literatures of the
World, and has been translated from the author's
manuscript by Lady Mary Loyd.
Professor Clement Huart, who is one of the most
distinguished and most widely accomplished -of living
Orientalists, was born in 1854. He is among the many
eminent Eastern scholars who have proceeded from
the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes, and it is
his rare distinction to have proceeded, from the first, at
equal steps along the investigation of Arabic, Persian,
Turkish, and Romaic literatures. He was early at-
tached to the service of the French Foreign Office, and
exercised for several years the functions of chancellor
at the French Consulate at Damascus. He was ulti-
mately called to Constantinople, originally as dragoman
to the French Embassy, then as Consul. In 1890 he
was sent to Asia Minor to make a report on the Arabic
epigraphy of that province, and he has made similar
investigations in Syria. He was recalled to Paris to
fill the responsible office of secretary-interpreter for
Oriental languages to the French Government. The
publications of Professor Huart are numerous, and are
known to all Eastern scholars.
333761
EDITORIAL PREFACE
vi
I have to thank Professor Huart for the kindness with
which he has adapted his extraordinary stores of infor-
mation to the scope of the volumes of the present
series. As the system of literation used for the Arabic
language in France is quite different from that employed
by English scholars, it was necessary to transpose
Professor Huart's spelling of proper names, and this
task has been performed for me by Mr. Reynold A.
Nicholson, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
and now Lecturer in Persian to that University.
EDMUND GOSSE.
January 1903.